Pleasure, Taboo, and What You Were Taught to Feel

I was a guest on a podcast recently, and when the conversation turned to sexuality and sensuality, I could see the host tense. Afterwards she said, "this is going on LinkedIn and no one ever talks about sexuality." It is such an interesting thing. Every one of us exists because our parents had sex. So let us take a breath, and find some humour in how much goes unspoken.

We Were All Programmed

Where did your conditioning come from? Take a breath and think back. Were your parents covered up or at ease in their bodies? When a film showed a kiss, did someone reach for the remote? Could you ask them what was happening in your body? We are a little like computers. We were programmed by society, by parents, by siblings, by school, and we assume those thoughts and rules are all our own. Become a sleuth. Ask, "what was I taught about this?" Often you find a belief that is not even yours.

Giving Children the Words

A newspaper once interviewed me about when to start talking to children about sexuality, and my answer was: as soon as you can. Normalise the real words for body parts. Boys have a penis, girls have a vulva and a vagina, we have different bodies. When my four were young, I told them plainly that if anyone, adult or child, ever touched them in a way that did not feel safe, they could come to me or their father, or tell each other. The most important thing is that they feel safe in their own body, and that whoever is around them respects it. Talk in the bath, keep it ordinary. When my twins started their periods and felt shy in front of their brothers, I reminded them that normalising it now means their brothers will one day know how to be present for partners and children of their own.

What Pleasure Actually Is

For me, pleasure is anything that brings joy, that scrumptiousness, that effervescence running through the body. Once you have access to it, everything else stems from it. It is where new ideas come from. It can stop you in your tracks when you are overwhelmed. Notice the words you use, because words are how we rewire patterns. When I say pleasure, what comes up for you? It might be sensuality. It might be your mother's warning about promiscuous girls. It might be a newborn's smell, or wet grass under your feet, or a cold glass of water quenching a real thirst so completely it sends a shiver through you. All of that is pleasure.

We Each Have a Different Way In

Here is a taste of something I teach in full elsewhere: we do not all take the same pathway into pleasure. Some people go electric through taste and smell, dropping into a sensual, static bliss. Some are energetic, and simply being approached will either expand them or make them freeze. Some think of pleasure in the way we hear about it most, wired toward the sexual. Some are drawn to what feels taboo for them, which can carry a lot of shame and be hard to name to a partner. Some of us are shapeshifters who like a bit of all of them, along with all of their shadows.

This is why, mid-touch, a thought can crash in, "did I turn the gas off?", and pop you straight out of the moment. Or a scent turns you off and your whole body shuts down. That is completely normal, and there is a way through it: learning each other's blueprint, what your way in is, what blocks you, and then your partner's. That is when a real symphony begins between two people. I go deeper into this pathway in a future episode.

"Where can you stay curious about your beliefs? What does it trigger inside of you? The words that we say to ourselves make a massive difference. That is how we rewire patterns."